I checked online and found that for our area, the last frost date is somewhere between Feb 21 and Feb 29th, so that sort of gives me a remaining time frame that I'm looking to use good quantities of hay before the Spring grass comes in. It has been a mild winter so far. I can only recall two days in which I've seen ice in the water troughs. I'll keep that in mind when estimating hay usage in future years and ensure I have some "wiggle room" for normal or colder winters. A cow, especially a cow in milk, needs to eat more hay or roughage to give her calories for producing heat. If you don't have adequate feed/hay, the cow robs from her stores of body fat to create energy for warmth. You don't want that!
Let's walk out to the barn and take inventory. As I walk out there, I see three laying hens, scratching around in the barn for bits of grain or bugs. This picture shows the diversity of laying breeds we have. From left to right, we have the creamy white colored chicken that is an Aracauna. She lays blue and green eggs. To the right of her is a Rhode Island Red. She is a prolific layer of brown eggs. To the right of her and in the foreground is a Barred Rock hen and she lays brown eggs and is a good dual purpose bird, providing both eggs and meat. You can also see the ladder that leads us up into the loft.
cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck... |
Hay Remaining in the loft |
This is some fancy 'ciphering'. |
The two round bales we have left out will last about a week per bale once I roll them out and put a hay ring around it before Daisy and Rosie completely devour the round bale and I have to go out and remove the plastic twine. Cows have been known to eat it or get it wrapped around their legs and sometimes it can can cause death. So we have about a 14 day supply of hay from the two round bales.
Two round bales left (covered with a tarpaulin to keep out of the weather) |
Eat it up! |
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